'Good day,' Professor Trelawney's voice floated out of the perfumed fog and Tansy jumped slightly. She quickly manoeuvred herself away from the Professor whilst her attention was on Harry, but accidentally tripped over one of the small, round, tables before she had moved more than a few feet. Professor Trelawney looked down a little distastefully as Tansy landed spread-eagled on the floor in front of her. Through the corner of her eye, she saw Harry making a quick getaway whilst the Professor's attention wasn't on him and grimaced.

'You are keeping your emotions imprisoned,' she said dolefully, as Tansy scrabbled around the floor, her rough fingernails grating over the dusty carpet, trying to pick up all of her belongings. 'My Inner-Eye sees every feeling you are refusing to either show or acknowledge. The time will come when…' The timely arrival of Neville halted the Professor's doom-laden prophecy and Tansy hurried off to her usual seat at the back of the class with the boys.

'...every feeling that you are refusing either to show or acknowledge...' The words echoed around Tansy's head and she shook herself mentally; Professor Trelawney was a fraud and there was no point dwelling on what she had said.

'Do be careful, dear,' the Professor was telling Neville. 'Once you have fallen over once, do take care not to do so again.' Needless to say Neville went headlong into two sofas on his way to his seat.

When everyone was assembled, Professor Trelawney began the lesson in the traditional theatrical manner. It was extremely difficult to remain focused in the warm perfumed fog and Tansy's mind began wandering a little. She rubbed at the corners of her eyes; they were starting to get itchy again as her old allergy resurfaced. Her nose was also itching but when she dug in her pocket, she couldn't seem to find a tissue.

'Harry,' Ron muttered, causing her to look up sharply.

'I was saying that you were definitely born under the influence of Saturn, my dear.' Professor Trelawney repeated, looking a little bit annoyed.

'Born under what, sorry?' Harry asked blankly. Professor Trelawney looked even more irritated and repeated her prediction for a third time.

'…am I right in saying that you were born in mid-winter?' Ron and Tansy cracked up as Harry answered her. Most unfortunately this caused the Professor to turn to Tansy.

'And you, my dear, you were born under the influence of Venus; the fiery temper, the unchecked family errors.' Tansy blushed as the entire class turned to look at her and was extremely relieved when Professor Trelawney continued the lesson.

Ron and Harry were both in bad tempers by the end of the lesson, mainly because Professor Trelawney had given them all so much homework.

'That'll take all weekend, that will…' Ron moaned, as they walked down the marble staircase.

'All week, more like,' Harry put in. 'I've absolutely no idea what she's on about most of the time…' He put on a high voice that didn't sound remotely like Professor Trelawney's mystical tones. '…analyse how the planetary movements will affect you in the coming month… urgh she's a right old fraud… you don't understand it do you, Tansy?' He asked hopefully.

Tansy smiled knowingly at him, 'well, due to the conjunction of Mars and er Saturn, I will be betrayed by a dear friend next Friday…' She began. Ron stopped walking and looked at her with an open mouth.

'What?' Harry asked.

'And um Uranus will cause me to be burnt to death next week…' Tansy continued her recitation, trying and failing to keep a straight face; both the boys were looking astounded.

'Ah I get it! You mean make it up?' Harry said, his expression clearing.

'Well yeah; that was how I got full marks in the Divination exam last year.' The two boys looked surprised. 'I told her that I saw the Grim in the crystal ball. Just put in loads of misery and she'll love it.'

They had reached the bottom of the staircase by now, but as they crossed over to the great hall a loud, snide voice echoed across the entrance hall.

'Weasley! Hey, Weasley!'

'Oh no, look out,' Hermione had appeared out of nowhere, holding a pile of books and looking worriedly at Malfoy, who had called out.

'What?' Ron demanded.

'No need to be so touchy, Weasley; I just wanted to tell you that your dad's in the paper.' He strode over to them and began reading from a crumpled edition of the morning's Daily Prophet in a loud voice. Tansy listened in growing anger.

'So is his mother really that porky?' Malfoy asked in a carrying voice, 'go on Potter, or Lavatory come to think of it; you were both staying with them this summer weren't you?' Tansy bit back her own anger as Harry retorted furiously.

They had just turned away when they heard a loud bang and something white-hot swept between Tansy and Harry. As she whipped round, pulling out her wand, a second loud bang rang through the entrance hall. Malfoy had vanished; in his place stood a small, white ferret.

'OH NO YOU DON'T LADDIE!' A roar rang out over the assembled students and Tansy jumped. Professor Moody was limping towards them, his wand trained on the ferret-Malfoy.

'He didn't get either of you, did he?' Professor Moody asked with one eye on the ferret and the other on the two students.

'No Professor,' Harry answered. 'He missed.' Tansy shook her head in reply, blushing her usual red; they had drawn quite a crowd by this point and she was feeling uncomfortable under the scrutiny of so many people.

To the delight of both Ron and Harry, Professor Moody began to bounce the ferret through the air. Every time it hit the floor, it would squeal with pain and Tansy watched in an uncomfortable silence and was quite pleased when Professor McGonagall arrived and put a stop to it.


Tansy was not looking forward to their first Potions class the following morning. Luckily for her it passed relatively painlessly, although Neville somehow managed to melt another cauldron. During the class Professor Snape marked their homework essays and when he handed it back to them at the end she was pleased to see that there was a lot less red ink on it than normal. Breathing a sigh of relief and whispering a quiet thank you to Hermione, she slipped it into her bag and set about comforting Neville, who looked as if he was about to suffer a nervous breakdown.

After break, she set off on her own up the marble staircase towards the Transfiguration department, where she sat through an incredibly difficult lesson on transforming dead wood into living plants. At the end of the lesson, her tree stump showed only a couple of green shoots but one quick glance around the room showed her that it wasn't such a poor accomplishment; many of the seventh years hadn't got any results at all. Professor McGonagall completed the lesson by giving them the biggest pile of homework that Tansy had ever seen.

'Miss Laverstock!' Tansy looked up from packing away her things. 'Here is a past NEWT paper; could you please try questions one to five before Thursday evening?' Tansy nodded, her heart sinking; it didn't seem fair to her that she was given extra work to complete for two days' time. Added to this the seventh years didn't have another lesson until Friday, which meant they had a whole extra day to complete the work that the Professor had already set them! Even so, Tansy knew secretly that she didn't really mind; she always enjoyed doing Transfiguration homework even when she found it hard.

That evening she joined Hermione in the library and was incredibly surprised to find that Hermione wasn't working; she was reading through a large, dusty volume entitled, A History of House-elves. Hermione huffed loudly and slammed the book shut in a small cloud of dust and Tansy looked up from her Transfiguration homework, which was proving to be incredibly tricky.

'What's the matter?' She asked, sucking the end of her quill for inspiration. Hermione looked at her exasperatedly, almost as if she was deciding how much to tell her.

'Well I've been researching elf enslavement. It goes back centuries and I just can't believe that nobody has done anything about it before.'

'Just what are you planning on doing about it?' Tansy asked, mildly surprised.

'Well, to start with I think that we should make people aware of the fact that they're enslaved without pay or holiday.' Hermione said eagerly.

'We...?' Tansy put down her quill in alarm, but Hermione wasn't listening.

'Then we should talk to the Ministry of Magic about trying to get an elf into the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures because they're so shockingly under-represented. But to start with we should get people involved; that can be your job Tansy; I'm making you the social secretary.' Tansy felt her anxiety building and shook her head.

'I can't just talk to people that I don't know,' she said in a fierce whisper. 'I'm rubbish at it; you know that, Hermione. I just clam up and nothing comes out of my mouth. I…' Tansy stopped herself just in time, before she blurted out the entire extent of her problems with talking to strangers. She was also irritated to see that Hermione was shaking her head in impatience.

'You shouldn't be so shy, Tansy. You're amazing at so many things and…' She began. Tansy pushed her chair back and stood up.

'One thing,' she interrupted, 'the only thing I'm any good at is Transfiguration.'

'Well, you just lack confidence…' Hermione began again. Tansy swept her book and parchment into her bag.

'Look Hermione, I'll help you sort out the finances or something but I'm not going to be able to just go round and talk to loads of people I don't know; you know that. I'll try my best at anything else…'

'The library is closing; get out now.' Madam Pince's arrival cut off the awkward exchange between the two friends. The librarian waved her wand and the lamps around them were extinguished in an instant and they were plunged in darkness.

'Nothing if not to the point,' Hermione muttered grumpily, as they walked out of the library.


They had their first Defence class with Professor Moody on Thursday afternoon, and after watching the ex-Auror turn Malfoy into a ferret, Tansy felt quite nervous: Professor Moody obviously didn't have the same boundaries as 'normal' Professors and she really didn't want to get on the wrong side of him. Predictably, Hermione went to the library during lunch break, so Tansy entered the classroom with Harry and Ron. The boys were desperate to sit in the front of the class but Tansy wasn't so sure; she had a sneaky suspicion, or it might just have been a forlorn hope, that Professor Moody would pick 'volunteers' from near the front. Having lost the battle, she slid very unwillingly into a front row desk.

Moody was almost as terrifying as she'd anticipated; the endless spinning of his magical eye made Tansy feel slightly queasy, but the more she tried not to look at it, the more her eyes seemed to be drawn to the whizzing, blue eyeball. She swallowed and focused on her books and was pleased when the Professor had finished his introduction and began demonstrating the unforgivable curses with the help of three large, black spiders. This caused Ron to recoil and push his chair back as far as he could.

The first was called the Imperius Curse and although it was quite amusing watching the spider do a tap dance across the table, Tansy felt rather uneasy: It was all very well being able to control a spider, but the idea of controlling a person in the same way was simply creepy. Finally, Professor Moody removed his wand and placed the spider back in the jar with its companions.

'Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?' He growled. To Tansy's surprise, Neville's hand shot up.

'There's one – the Cruciatus curse, or something,' he whispered.

Tansy looked at him in alarm as memories of the Chamber of Secrets resurfaced. She breathed in deeply but she didn't seem to be able to get enough air and she felt a familiar sense of claustrophobia as if the walls of the room were closing in on her. Professor Moody removed the second spider from the jar and enlarged it with a wave of his wand.

'Crucio!' The spider rolled over and began to twitch horribly.

Tansy sat motionless in her seat, fighting back the memories, but as the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently, she couldn't hold them at bay any longer.

'-you are far too clever for your own good. Seeing the Basilisk after the attack on the mudblood first year… always arriving at the scene of the attack seconds after it had happened… How did I know you hadn't told a teacher?'

'-I didn't know what I'd seen!' Tansy felt her lips moving to answer Riddle in spite of herself. She clamped them shut.

'-Then maybe you're not so clever after all! And now Laverstock, I'm going to teach you a little lesson. Crucio!'

Tansy screamed as white hot, burning pain ripped through her. Her screams echoed around the stone walls of the classroom and brought her back to reality. The class erupted around her; people were shouting and standing up, trying to see what the matter was.

Breathing hard, she clamped her lips together to stop her voice from escaping.

'Tansy, Tansy? Are you okay?' Hermione asked frantically. She placed a hand on Tansy's arm but Tansy ripped it off.

'Don't touch me! Nobody can touch me!' Somehow the words escaped, even though the entire class was looking at her. Realising that she was shouting, she bit down on her lower lip. Nausea stirred in her stomach and she leaned forward and vomited all over the floor. Professor Moody put the spider back in the jar, before vanishing the vomit with a wave of his wand.

'Quiet!' The class fell silent as Professor Moody approached Tansy. 'What happened there, Laverstock?' he asked, his gravelly voice strangely gentle.

'Please, Professor.' Moody turned his attention to Harry. 'Please, Professor; Tansy had the curse put on her just over a year ago…' He trailed off as the whispers began again.

'Silence.' Moody's growl halted the whispers that had now turned to full blown conversations and restored silence to the classroom. He turned back to Tansy. 'I see, Miss Laverstock. But you had to know. No point pretending…'

Wanting nothing more than to get out of the class, Tansy pushed her chair back and stood up shakily. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out of her mouth. She willed the tears to stay away until she was alone. Hermione stood up too.

'I'll take her to the hospital wing, Professor,' she offered, with a worried glance at Tansy who had begun to shake uncontrollably.

As they left the classroom, Tansy caught a glimpse of Neville; his face was white and he looked as if he was about to faint. Making a mental note to make sure he was alright later, she quickly followed Hermione out of the door.

'Well, who knows that last unforgivable curse?' She heard Moody asking, before the door swung shut, leaving the two friends alone in the silent corridor.


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